ECONOMYNEX - Chamath Palihapitiya, a Sri Lanka born information technology venture capitalist now residing in the US, has been appointed as the country's ICT Brand Ambassador by President Maithripala Sirisena.

Palihapitiya had first worked at AOL, and then joined the start-up that became facebook.

He left facebook and founded a venture capital firm, Social Capital, in 2011, which now has assets over $1.1 billion, a statement said.